`Joy Ride' Deadly For Young Driver

October 24, 1995|By Pamela Cytrynbaum.

Ford Heights — In a case authorities say was a "joy ride turned into a tragedy," a 12-year-old Ford Heights boy was killed Sunday after losing control and crashing the car he was driving head-on into a parked 18-wheeler.

John Bell Jr., of the 1400 block of Embassy Lane, was pronounced dead at 11:32 p.m. at St. James Hospital and Health Centers in Chicago Heights, said Officer Vincent Hunter, spokesman for the Ford Heights Police Department.

The boy suffered multiple injuries, said a spokeswoman for the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.

Two passengers in the car suffered minor injuries and were treated and released from St. James Hospital, Hunter said. The passenger sitting in the front was identified as Randean Madden, 20, of the 900 block of East 17th St., Ford Heights. Hunter said the second passenger was a 13-year-old, also from Ford Heights, who was not identified because he is a juvenile.

The 12-year-old was driving a 1990, blue Pontiac 6000, traveling at a high rate of speed eastbound on 10th Street onto Hammond Lane, about 10:45 p.m. Sunday, Hunter said. The car was apparently stolen from Chicago Heights, but Hunter said it was unclear how the man and boys got the car. No charges have been filed, he said.

The driver lost control of the car in the 1400 block of Hammond Lane. "He was not an experienced driver," Hunter said. "He collided head-on with a parked semitractor trailer, an 18-wheeler that had been parked there for about two months."

Hunter said the juveniles were out past curfew, and he called the episode "a case of a joy ride turned into a tragedy."

No signs of alcohol or drugs were found in the car, which was registered to a Chicago Heights man, Hunter said.